As the United States has become progressively more environmentally conscious many areas of environmental pollution have been regulated. Areas of great and recent concern for regulation and pollution abatement are the rivers and streams in America. In times past rivers and streams were convenient dumping points for pollution from all manner of industrial operations. However the flow of a river by its nature carries the pollution further downstream to many areas that are adversely affected by the upstream pollution.
In many rivers in America oil and other chemical terminals are located on rivers where potential pollutants are loaded and unloaded to industrial, municipal, and other users. Spills from these loading and unloading points pose grave environmental hazards to those downstream of any such spill.
Existing systems for oil spill control are cumbersome and take many hours if not days to deploy or are extremely expensive to construct. These systems typically use floating booms to contain the spill. The current in a river will frequently take the pollutants down stream many many miles before any such booms can be deployed to intercept a spill. In the meantime, the river banks become polluted with the spilled substance between the point of the spill and the final point where floating booms or other means can hopefully contain the spill. All the intervening territory including the towns and people who live therein are adversely affected by any such accident.
Various inventions have come into existence which attempt to prevent pollutants or other undesirable objects from reaching areas where they are not wanted. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,563 to Clark describes a buoyant marine fence. This device while semi-buoyant is not a pollution control device but rather uses netting to prevent sea animals and debris from reaching swimming areas.
U.S. Pat. No. No. 3,321,923 to Smith et al. describes a steerable self-powered floating structure designed to be used as a water pollution control, rescue, and life saving device. This system relies upon a source of pressurized air to inflate a boom and to steer it to different locations. Such a system suffers when it is used perpendicular to the flow of wave motion or the current in a river. In fact the specification itself states that the invention is best used in the direction of any such current. Thus when used in a river scenario air pressure alone might not be sufficient to steer this self powered structure into place and hold it there for an extended period of time except in very limited circumstances.
U.S. Pat. No. No. 4,248,547 discloses a fence for enclosing impurities floating on water. This invention comprises a fence wherein pickets are inserted which have a density lighter than water and which cause the fence to float in a vertical position. While this invention does provide a barrier against impurities floating on the surface of the water its deployment is cumbersome and not readily amenable to automated means. Further no provision is made for securing this particular fence against the flow of a river which would cause a tremendous pressure to be exerted on the fence itself.
U.S. Pat. No. No. 3,762,168 describes a water pollution control device for removing pollutants from navigable streams, rivers and lakes. This device requires the installation of a series of barriers to both skim the surface of the stream and to simultaneously direct any impurities or debris to another location In the stream where a second barrier is created. This invention requires not only the installation of a large skimming barrier but the creation of an island to anchor one end of the first barrier and to anchor the second barrier wherein debris removal can take place. Further, this device poses a barrier to navigation and must be removed in order to permit boats to pass. Thus it cannot be deployed rapidly at locations other than that at which it is initially constructed.
Other floating boom systems known in the art are deployed by floating vessels of one type or another and require hours if not days to put in place in order to contain a spill, something that is unacceptable in a rapidly moving river.